Willoughbyland: England’s Lost Colony

Written by Matthew Parker
Review by Margaret Skea

Willoughbyland is the fascinating story of the rise and fall of a South American colony that I suspect many readers (including me) will never have heard of. It is also a complex weave of, and a commentary on, the politics, religious divides, economics and ambitions of 15^th– and 16^th-century Europe that drove the desire to explore and colonize, Parker convincingly presenting Guiana as a microcosm of empire. A treasure trove for the curious, there is a wealth of information on the geography, topography, flora and fauna (Guiana has 300 varieties of catfish) of the vast land area between the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. However, I felt that too much space was devoted to the background of Willoughbyland (c.100 out of 250 pages), especially the myth of El Dorado  That quibble aside, Parker’s flashes of humour, classical allusions and pithy commentaries on both characters and information – he categorizes Raleigh’s account of Guiana as a mix of ‘priceless anthropological evidence and patent hearsay’ – make this an immensely enjoyable read and one that will repay a second visit because of the sheer volume of information it contains.